Page 63 of The Ladies Least Likely
Anne shook her head. The silk ribbon on her bonnet fluttered. “She ran off with her Italian dancing master a few months after you left us. My father sued hers for breach of promise, but the money wasn’t much and Daron soon spent it.”
“So find another rich heiress. Surely there are a few about.”
Anne hesitated. “There are, but?—”
But why would a family bestow its richly endowed daughter on mere gentry when she could fetch a much higher rank? Gwen would not have been Daron Sutton’s first choice, not ever. She could no longer tell if the moisture on her face was from sweat or tears.
“I haven’t any money either, despite how it looks. St. Sefin’s doesn’t belong to me. We bring in barely enough income tosupport ourselves. And I need money myself so I can buy the priory from?—”
“Gwen!” Anne blinked in surprise. “Don’t you know your father left you everything?”
Gwen swiped at her stirring stick as it slipped from her grasp again. “Everything of what?” she asked.
“Come over here and sit down,” Anne said.
Gwen sat and listened, but she didn’t comprehend. She knew the property she grew up on, her father’s land, held a small mine. Her mother had warned Gwen away from the mining camp with its many dangers and rough-mannered workers, male and female alike.
But now she learned that, shortly after her mother died and Gwen was sent to live with the Suttons, her father discovered new veins of lead-silver on his property. Then he married the widow of a rich landowner and found deposits of copper on his wife’s land. The new mines made him rich, and when he supplied the British Navy with copper to plate the hulls of their warships, King George made him a knight.
And so her father, born a Welsh farmer, had died Sir David Carew, the cross of his order buried with him. And excepting the jointure due to the twice-widowed Lady Carew, he had bequeathed both his estates, with their farms and mines and houses and rich yields of ore, to his only surviving issue, Gwenllian.
His solicitors had followed Gwen to the Suttons, and the Suttons had come in search.
She needed air. She needed to move. Gwen stood and lunged outside, stepping into the courtyard just as Daron Sutton emerged from the kitchen. He gave her a confident smile and swaggered toward her. He cut a gentlemanly figure in his tailored coat and snug-fitting breeches. But he was a dumpling compared to Pen.
Even now, when she thought his betrayal laid to rest, Gwen’s chest hurt to know the only reason Daron could want her was mercenary. He wasn’t overcome with remorse or yearning for their long-ago, childish infatuation. No, it was a different self-interest. He needed a wife with money, and how could Gwen refuse him, ruined as she was? Rich merchants might lock up their virginal daughters, but Gwen’s honor could be repaired if she married, and the Sutton fortunes could be repaired with her mines.
Pen, at least, had wanted her for herself. A warm weight in his bed to keep the nightmares away, but there was something more honest in being wanted for her body than for her supposed inheritance.
Losing Pen was going to hurt her far more deeply than losing Daron ever had. Gwen knew that with a sudden flash as if the sun had broken through the grey press of clouds. Losing her lover and her child had so scarred her heart that she feared she might never care for another again. But she’d dared take that risk, to open her heart again. And now she knew that Pen’s leaving would bring her to her knees.
“Fair Gwenllian!” Daron attempted a bow, but his coat was too tight to allow much movement. “Has Anne finally persuaded you to be my bride? You will make us both very happy.”
“Gah! Get off, you stupid beast!” Calvin Vaughn’s voice startled them all. Gwen looked about for a place to bolt, recalling her last interaction with this man.
“Ass of a goat! I’ll have it in stew.”
Vaughn stomped into the courtyard. His scowl changed to calculation as he took in the tableau: Anne regal and pretty in her pale gown, Daron hovering, and Gwen with her grey flannel worn and dusty, her woolen shawl in need of a wash, her hair a frightening tangle from being tossed about all day by the wind.Medusa indeed, facing down another cocky warrior come to cut off her head.
Vaughn’s smile turned sly. “All wrapped up, then? Celebration in order?”
“Gwen has not yet accepted my hand.” Daron gave her a reproachful look, tapping his hat against one plump thigh.
“What could Miss Ewyas be holding out for?” Vaughn sneered. “She won’t get a better offer than you, Sutton.”
“Ewyas?” Anne fumbled with the Welsh pronunciation.
At the sound of her chosen name, the muddle in Gwen’s head shifted and fell apart. After years of isolation and loneliness, she had awakened that morning in the arms of a man who handled her as if she were a bolt of precious silk or a thread of priceless saffron. She didn’t owe Daron Sutton anything.
Her past did not define her. She wouldn’t allow it.
“Not get a better offer?” Gwen heaped a false sweetness into her voice. Sutton and Vaughn both owed her an apology that she would never hear. “I receive offers all the time. If I recall, you yourself, Mr. Vaughn, ardently expressed your admiration for me the last time I was at Greenfield.”
Anne frowned. “What do you mean?”
Daron sputtered. “Vaughn! Care to explain?”
“Ah. Ger.” Vaughn’s pasty face turned a brilliant red. “Misunderstanding! She’s telling bouncers. What can you expect of a female.” He swung on his friend. “Have it done with, will you, Sutton? I want to be free of this shitehole before that blasted goat eats my boot.”
